Zack Hample has snagged 7,806 baseballs at 51 different major league stadiums since 1990. Find out how and see what else he's been up to.

Steiner Sports dinner

Last night, thanks to an invitation from my friend Mike, I attended a Steiner Sports dinner in New Rochelle, NY. (For those who don’t know, Steiner is basically THE biggest sports memorabilia company in the world.) The purpose of this event was a) to showcase some items that will be sold at an upcoming auction and b) to raise money and awareness for a not-for-profit agency called Family Services of Westchester.

Here’s a photo of the room where the event took place:

Some people were wearing suits and ties. Others were wearing jeans and baseball caps. And Dwight Gooden was wearing a leather jacket:

Gooden was one of three players in attendance. Unfortunately I didn’t get to have my photo taken with him (or to tell him that I attended his no-hitter in 1996) because it was so crowded, but I managed to get photos with the other two guys:

I knew I was only going to have 20 seconds with Yogi Berra, so rather than telling him that my dad served with him at a submarine base during World War II, I mentioned my baseball collection and asked if he had any weird stories about baseballs. All he said was that back in the old days, when balls were hit into the stands during BP, one of the coaches would sometimes walk out there and ask the fans to give ‘em back.

As for Brett Gardner, the first thing I told him was, “Last year, during the final week at the old Yankee Stadium, you tossed your ninth-inning warm-up ball into the bleachers, and I got it, so thank you for that.”

“Oh…” he said, “you’re welcome.”

“Now, I don’t want you to feel used,” I continued, “but I’ve actually caught a LOT of balls in my life, and if I told you how many, you’d probably call me a liar.”

“How many?” he asked.

“Over forty-three hundred,” I said, and since there was no one else waiting to talk to him at that point (he’d already been there for a couple hours), we got to chat for a few minutes. He asked me questions about my collection, and after I explained some of the details, I told him that I used my collection to raise a lot of money for charity this year. I then asked him what his fastest time running the 60-yard dash was, and he said it was something like “six-three-six,” meaning 6.36 seconds, which is thoroughly insane, not to mention more than a full second faster than I ever ran it. I bowed down to him in “We’re not worthy!” fashion, and he admitted that he’s probably not quite that fast anymore.

“But you WERE when it mattered,” I said, “when all the scouts had their stopwatches ready.”

Dwight Gooden and Yogi Berra and Brett Gardner weren’t the only celebrities at the dinner; the man responsible for the food itself — Executive Chef Robert Hesse — was quite well known as well. Here’s a photo of him with my friend Mike:

Hesse starred on the show “Hell’s Kitchen” and has recently worked as a personal chef for some bigtime sports stars (including Hank Aaron). Here’s a short article about him.

In the photo above, the plate in Hesse’s right hand has two slices of pork tenderloin and a small cup of his beyond-awesome sausage gumbo. The plate in his left hand has a pulled pork slider, mac-n-cheese, and roast beef with some kind of white/creamy sauce on top.

I asked Hesse if he’d ever caught a baseball at a game, and when he said no, I said, “Good because I’m completely inept in the kitchen.”

Back to the baseball memorabilia, here are a few of the items that were on display:

In the photo above, do you see that little case just beyond the upper right corner of the “final season” base? That contained a freeze-dried clump of dirt and grass from the old Yankee Stadium.

Here’s another cool item. I don’t know exactly what to call it or where in the old stadium it was located, but it seems to be some kind of mail slot unit. Check it out:

Here’s a close-up:

Here’s another photo of the room:

Did you notice the turnstile in the photo above? (I miss the old NYC stadiums so much. I can’t even describe it. I had a dream last night that I was at Shea, and there were about 14 fans in the entire ballpark. I was in heaven…and I was nearly depressed when I woke up.)

I wanted to see what kind of ball Joba had signed. In other words…what did the logo say? Was it an All-Star ball? Those are typically the only types of balls with multi-colored stitching (click here and here and here for some examples), so I walked around to the back of the table and crouched down. This is what I saw:

Whoa. That’s pretty snazzy. I never knew that such a ball even existed…and do you see the name on it? The printed signature? It says “Brandon Steiner.” That’s THE guy at Steiner Sports — the head of the whole company. Shortly after I took this photo, I got to meet him and chat for a few minutes, and based on a few things we discussed, I have a feeling that I might be crossing paths with him again next season…

10 Comments

Holy-moly – what a singular experience. I’m stunned to see how short Yogi Berra is. D’ya thnk such a height-challenged fella would be able to compete with the outsized monsters who populate the sport in this era? Yet he has more World Series rings than anyone else in the history of the game, yes? Doc looks pretty good, too. And so do you.

Zack,
Based on what you know about opening week and what you know about Minute Maid and Rangers Ballpark, do you think opening week at these parks will make it hard to get baseballs or have stricter rules?
Mikehttp://metsandmlb.mlblogs.com/

BRADFORDBATBOY-
Thanks. It’s an old argument: how would the players of previous generations perform against today’s stars? I don’t know. Yogi’s size would certainly make it tougher for him, but he was so good back then that I’m pretty sure he’d be able to play now (if he were a young man now, that is).

MIKE-
Opening Day rules can certainly be stricter in some ballparks, but things always settle down after that very first day. The big crowd is more of a challenge to me than the temporary rules.

VEGANTEMP-
Yep, it was pretty darn fun. Now, if Gooden had strolled in, wearing a full Mets pinstriped uniform from the 1980s…THAT would’ve been heaven.

PUCK COLLECTOR-
Thanks for looking into that mail item. Nice to know the official name.

TODD-
Heh. He was pretty cool — very laid-back and friendly and patient with everyone, but then again, it was mostly a party for VIPs, so Gardner really didn’t have any reason to be antsy.

That Steiner ball is awesome! I want one! I can’t believe you got so close to that pork! That’s cool about being at Dwight Gooden’s no hitter. I’ve been to AJ Burnett’s and Bud Smith’s no hitters here in 2001 when SD was SO BAD. Always fun to watch one in person. Keep up the good work on the book. Speaking of books. Your first one is selling quite high on Amazon in the secondary market. I could make some mad cash if I sold my autographed copy. It could pay for quite a few games……..Hmmmmmmmm? Maybe I’ll just keep it in case you get famous. Merry Christmas everybody!!

Thanks for the pics and the story. A lot of great stuff. The Steiner/Holiday ball interested me as well. I just checked and Steiner has another auction that just started called Family Services where there are a couple of these balls up for auction. Thought some might want to check it out. Happy Holidays!!

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